Once upon a time, a group of Shanghai Expats decided to meet at a local cafe to compare notes and enjoy some coffee to start off the weekend. It grew into what was known as the Saturday Morning Coffee Meeting and has been a source of many friendships and good times.

While the official coffee meeting was moved to Sundays at XinTiandi, for me, it never quite had the same charm as the Saturday morning ones. Saturday mornings were more relaxed and allowed participants to have a bit more free time to socialize, grab lunch and sometimes, many times, we hung out all day and into the evening parting sometimes after a late night out! So, after carefully considering my free time, i am going to start up a saturday morning event again though this time in Zhong Shan Park area to make it more convenient for me and those in the central and western parts of the city to come by.

So in talking to several veteran expats and several new ones, it seems logical to set up a meet on Saturdays, so thats what i am doing. After talking with Coffee Bean's management, they have graciously offered to host us at their Zhong Shan Park location AND will extend us the 10% discount extended on the other coffee event.
So here is the deal:

This coming Saturday morning (we started on June 2, 2007) and every Saturday, from 10:30am-12:30pm, come meet for coffee at The Coffee bean and Tea Leaf located on the 1st floor back entrance of Cloud Nine Mall （ 龙之梦）. We will hang out, chat, and share experiences and afterwards will plan to do lunch somewhere nearby as a group. Other possibilities are to shop the mall, or go to Carrefour downstairs, or take the Line 2,3, or 4 metro somewhere to explore the day away. There is parking downstairs for families and individuals with cars that need to arrive that way.

So those expats from the western areas of town, especially Gubei, HongQiao, ZhongShan Park area and Jing An, this is a convenient place to drop by. Not sure how much more convenient a place i could find. So come on out!

Any questions, please PM me. My wife and I (and babyyu too) will host this event and welcome all Shanghai Expat community members to come! We look forward to seeing you!

Cheers!

Ed


Summary:

Saturday Coffee Meeting
Starts June 2, 2007
Coffee bean located in Cloud Nine mall
Zhong Shan park
Families welcome!
10% discount for coffee and food for participants!
10:30am- 12:30pm
We will likely head out after to a 1pm lunch.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I have gotten messages asking about this event so I want to clarify a few things. This event's intent is to give Expats and their families a chance to meet each other, hang out, and compare notes, to basically help make the experience of living and working in Shanghai a positive one. Any expat is welcome, and any locals who will add-value to the above discussions are also welcome, but please, no commercial discussions will be allowed, and no soliciting by language teachers, nor language exchanges etc... you can do your own meetings for that.
This WILL be enforced as its is all about expats getting a chance to meet.

Good idea Ed. Wanted to come to one of the functions but found it difficult 'cause I live out in the boonies of the western suburbs (west of HQ airort). Will definitely try to make this one.

Hallo Ed,
sounds super! Thanks a lot! But can you also post the chinese adress for the taxi? In the morning I am to lazy for the metra.
Thanks
Tom

different crowd from the sunday one, no doubt about it.

Ha. I remember meeting a bunch of people from this website in said meetings 4 years ago.

Many still friends, from these very first meetings. Great people.

"Seems a thousand centuries ago"...

Good stuff Eddy. I might drop by.

Yes, I would like to come.. looking forward to it !

Coffee bean and tea leaf is located inside Cloud Nine Mall. it is located at the back entrance so ask driver to goto Cloud Nine mall located at ChangNing Rd and KaiXuan Rd. Chinese text asks driver to then go to back entrance on HuiChuan Rd.

Chinese info follows:

龙之梦购物中心
长宁路和凯旋路
请到汇川路的后门停。

just copy/paste and print.

Hey, what exactly time are you meeting and have lunch?

Besides, I want to buy a medium-heel sandal, is Cloud Nine Mall in discounted promotional sales this week?

After 12:30 sometime I suppose we will try and grab lunch.

I'll see everyone tomorrow morning, thanks again yu.

Hmm....cool. Cloud Nine Mall is nearby

enjoy the coffee and the beautiful weather and companions. Bring tissues to clean your nose as well. DRINK THE COFFEE! Next time, Ok la. I will bring my unicycle. bye

cool. Oh, it will be clearly marked with ShanghaiExpat banner at the inside entrance and I shall be there after 1030.

And Arseny, if you come, i will buy you all the coffee you can drink to ride the unicycle thru the mall.

I am brain new in Shanghai.
Definitely will come

Hey I gotta move today. But I really want to come to this. Sounds much better than Sunday. Will this happen next weekend?????

Planning to make this an on going thing Sunshine so yeah, plan on us being there next weekend as well.

Hey you guys.. out west.... Yu is having a Sat Coffee Meeting.. come on out!

I thought I could attend this, now my kid is sick looks like I will miss out this weekend ! too bad !

Wow, that was fun. Was kind of a long event but it was great meeting everyone new! Had 17 people pop by including 2 kids, a mom on a break from her kids, a dad waiting for his family but who ultimately had to go meet them elsewhere, and a bunch of crazy singles that could be young enough to be my kids...almost.

Ok, joking on the last part, but it turned out quite fun. Did coffee and chatted until around 1pm before heading upstairs to a nice Chinese restaurant for a nice lunch sitting around chatting for quite some time. Some of them are still out I think.

Looking forward to making this continue so that Lotta, Sunshine and many others can come by.

Hope your kid is ok Lotta!

See all of you next week!

Good to see it was a success ! yes, my kid is better now.. had a cold and rather warm to touch in the morning, and was complaining of head ache.. I was worried but apparently a restful ( for him, not me ) day did help..the weather was not so good so did not want to take a chance.
Will try and attend next week !

Finally made it to my first Shanghai Expat coffee meeting. Thanks Yu for organising the event. We will definately try to be back every week.

thanks for organizing the event Ed. I had a great time chatting with everyone! see ya'll next sat.

pics are loaded in their own album

http://www.shanghaiexpat.com/modules.ph ... _album.php

So, just to clear up any confusion, there are now TWO coffee meetings every week. Saturday morning at Cloud 9 Coffee Bean and Sunday afternoon starting around noon at Xintiandi Coffee Bean. Choose your time and place and meet some nice people.

Its almost the weekend so the next Coffee meeting will be tomorrow morning! See you all again there!

Looking forward to see you all again!

I just got my hep B shot today so no alcohol for three days!

Point being- I should be able to get up for this one and look forward to seeing people there...

jarrmatey wrote:I just got my hep B shot today so no alcohol for three days!

Point being- I should be able to get up for this one and look forward to seeing people there...

thats a sin!

Well, if I had know of the "side effects" I would have scheduled it for Tuesday or something.
The silver lining is coffee on Saturday though!